A New View of City Hall

The recent demolition on Washington Avenue has given us the opportunity of seeing the south side of City Hall from a new perspective. This view has seldom been available since the building was built from 1894-7. The tower is shown on the Sanborn fire insurence maps to be 167 feet tall. Visitors can go about 2/3 the way up the tower where they can see the Zilwaukee Bridge on I-75. This is a favorite on the tours offered to school children by the Bay County Historical Museum which is located directly behind City Hall in this view.

Making Local History

 

Mary Lydia Doe was a key figure in the suffrage movement in Michigan from 1880 to 1900.  She lived at 922 N. Monroe in Bay City close to May Stocking Knaggs, who had a house not more than a few blocks away. 

 

She, like May, was president of the Equal Suffrage Association.  She was chosen at the founding meeting in Flint in 1884. 

She was a member of the Bay City School Board  in 1890-91 when it was very unusual for a woman to hold office. She was the second vice president of the Michigan Federation of Labor.

 

This is only a beginning of the achievements of this remarkable woman.

Toxic ash seepage discovered at Consumer’s Energy dump from Karn-Weadock plant.

In Bay City, where the state’s largest electricity provider, Consumer’s Power, has its Karn-Weadock coal-fired plant, and where it has applied to build an additional coal power plant, seepage from an ash dump has contaminated the nearby Saginaw Bay.

According to the Bay City Times, the pollution only became widely known in fall of 2008, when an environmental group researching Consumers Energy’s plans for a new plant discovered state DEQ records detailing seepage of arsenic, boron and lithium in excess of state standards.

Saginaw DEQ officials were unavailable to speak with Michigan Messenger.

“We don’t need coal to live. We do need water. For the short-term use of coal we are threatening essential resources.”

Terry L. Walkington, supervisor of the DEQ Waste and Hazardous Materials Division in Bay City recently told the Bay City Times that mercury, a toxin that is bioaccumulative and affects brain development, has been found outside the landfill at levels that exceed state standards.

As in Lansing, power company officials in Bay City plan a multimillion-dollar slurry wall around the dump to limit seepage of toxins.

Sprague of the Sierra Club said that the migration of toxins from coal ash dumps should be considered as the state evaluates the several pending proposals for new coal plants.

“All the ‘clean coal’ rhetoric means is taking pollutants from the air stream and putting pollutants in the landfill where there is a greater chance for pollutants to leach into water,” Sprague said.

“We don’t need coal to live. We do need water. For the short-term use of coal we are threatening essential resources.”

http://michiganmessenger.com/11691/coal-ash-dumps-a-time-bomb-for-michigan-water-environmentalists-say

Tags: clean coal, bay city, karn-weadock, mercury, saginaw bay, michigan messenger

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James O'Roarke

 

James J. O'Roarke was a hero of the South Pacific who was killed by friendly fire on Bougainville after winning a Silver Star on Guadalcanal. Part of his story is told in a book called Orchids in the Mud.